About

So, About Page, my old enemy.  We meet again.  

Well, I’m a writer and an academic, and an academic writer.  My real name is Greg Conley, though most of you undoubtedly know me more as Cuchlann.  I currently attend the University of Memphis (the one in Tennessee, not Egypt).  I have just finished an MFA in creative writing (fiction); in the fall of 2009 I will begin my Ph.D. in literature, with a focus on the 18th and 19th centuries.  

You might be wondering why you should be interested in what a burgeoning 18th-19th century literature scholar has to say.  Most of my interests align with some of yours, I would feel sure.  My primary loves are fantasy, science fiction, and supernatural horror.  I love nerd things, like anime, computers (I never seem to be able to get Linux dual-booted properly), and dinosaurs.  I’ve been known to watch my roommate play through every Metal Gear Solid game, and I’ve personally settled down with Irish whiskey and Earthbound, determined to get Poo’s Sword of kings (I had to kill 59 Starmen Supers).  

So why the old-fashioned literature study, you might ask.  SF and fantasy have their roots in the 19th century.  Brian Aldiss has laid claim to Frankenstein as the first SF novel, and certainly the field borrows heavily from the romance and the Gothic genres.  And anyway, I like the Gothics, the Romantics, and even the Victorians.  My favorite play is probably The Importance of Being Earnest.  

Which should rightly leave you wondering what I mean to do with this blog.  Most of its history so far has seen it focused on anime and manga.  I love both.  I also love American comics, SF novels, and Monty Python (of course I love the Pythons, I’d have to turn my nerd card in if I didn’t).  I’m here to talk about the things that entertain me and you.

How do I want to talk about them?  With something approaching the methodology of a literary critic.  That’s not “critic” in the sense of Siskel and Ebert. All that means is that I want to take a work, examine it according to its parts and its whole, and make statements about what I think of it. My longer pieces will usually have some sort of thesis, such as “Soul Eater uses the traditional doppelganger trope to highlight the nature of co-dependency” (I’ll write that post eventually, I swear). Of course, sometimes I just yell about awesome stuff or make fun of Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu. You know, whatever.

So. I love reading, even when it’s not a book. I got into anime originally because it was another place to find SF and fantasy. I like Hidamari Sketch, though, so clearly that’s not all that kept me hooked.  I grew up on Robotech and Voltron, and actively got into anime when I was in middle school, through Scifi’s Anime Saturday.  Ah, the days of Akira and Robot Carnival.  I’m a big fan of Slayers, Tenchi Muyo, and (slightly more recent stuff like) Genshiken.  

I love entertainment, so much so that I try to write some of my own. This blog is another form of entertainment. I believe criticism is art – for the simple reason that it can’t really be anything else. It’s entertainment; some of us enjoy thinking over the elements of art, seeing how they join together. That’s fun. Art is fun. Even in those late nights when your favorite writer or illustrator, that poor bastard doing line-by-line copies for Dragonball Kai, even in those long, painful stretches of work, it’s still fun, still entertaining someone, somewhere.

I can say nothing more rousing, to invite you to read my blog, than to offer to have fun together.

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